


A Terrible Affliction

by shikaku28



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, Other, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:15:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shikaku28/pseuds/shikaku28
Summary: Tommy's gone, Noh-Varr is desperate, and Billy is just trying to keep everything from falling too far apart. Even if that means salvaging other's feelings at his own expense.





	A Terrible Affliction

**Author's Note:**

> When Tommy takes himself out of the picture, everything falls apart. Billy takes it the hardest, but Noh-Varr is a very close second.

Noh-Varr exchanges a look with Billy because he knows. 

Tommy is gone. Has been gone for some time now. No one likes to think about it, or remember it. But everyone finds themselves doing so in their own way. 

America has lost many of her well meaning threats, often just shaking her fist and dropping it.  
Kate and David mourn in private.  
Teddy finds a strange wedge forced between him and Billy. Nothing to disrupt their relationship, but he often catches the way Billy- God he just curls in on himself, clutching at nothing but his skin sometimes. His soul. And Teddy just feels so useless he can’t do anything about it. There’s no comforting words or consolations that will bring the boy back, he just rides the wave of despair out in solitude, the heavy air radiating and polluting his general vicinity. 

To make matters worse, it wasn’t incredibly sudden, but subtle enough to just miss it. Undeniably uncomfortable presences and disappearing like he always did when things got rough, turned into heavier silences after particularly worrying punchlines and breakdowns no one was ever really privy to. 

Tommy danced a dangerous edge, but usually someone was there to stop it. Usually Noh was there. And the one time he wasn’t the whole world came tumbling with Tommy.

The Kree initially lashed out at everyone. He had seen it, from the very beginning he had fucking seen it. No one ever treated the speedster with the ‘as much as’ he deserved.  
Smart, but never as smart as David or Kate.  
Powerful, but not as important as Billy.  
Definitely on the watchlist but Loki outranked him by a mile. 

The alien had to return to space, he was too close to ripping the planet to shreds as he felt the same as when he initially arrived under suddenly all too familiar circumstances. No music could soften him or remove the sick and raw feeling that made him wanted to claw his insides out by hand and cascade them all over the street. Anything to stop feeling like this. 

Eventually he returned, when the sight of a humanoid face didn’t make him want to propel the entire planet into the sun. By that time he’d gone into an expected numbness. 

Sitting in a blank room, he stared at the wall, sometimes out the window, sometimes up at the ceiling. Never seeing, never hearing, just existing. 

Few came to check on him, offer him anything. He never accepted, despite the frequent times he would grow weak from malnutrition. It replaced the sickness, the crushing realization. 

Once David came in, Noh scowled with eyes that threatened murder.  
Kate made an attempt, his eyes only looked empty as he stared through her. A time before maybe, but never now.  
Teddy made an offer, but the other alien simply would not speak or take anything. 

Then came Billy. 

They made eye contact when Billy pushed the door open, and the look of hope or life or anything other than complete loss now directed at him made Billy want to die. Want to wish out of the entire nightmare. 

But he’d had enough of that. 

Enough of trying to fix everything with a spell. Sometimes Noh could hear him under his breath, the beginnings of a chant. ‘IwanthimbackIwanthimbackIwant-” the choking off of a sob. The acceptance of defeat. 

Noh-Varr puked over himself. The resulting healing had taken a week.

He would only speak to Billy. Speak wasn’t the correct term. React was more appropriate. Everyone knew why, no one contested. No one admitted. 

When he finally accepted water, Billy caught him standing in a corner, shaking like the aftershocks of a horrible decision. 

He looked sick. He felt sick. Kree don’t get sick. Roaches don’t get sick. And yet here he was dry heaving in a corner to himself. Billy had crossed the room at a quickened skip and thrust a bottle of water in his hand. Heaves were replaced by silent sobs but he took it and drank without a word. 

He looked at Billy, Billy didn’t look back; instead leaving. ‘Tell me if you need anything’ he had said. Noh would not tell him anything.

It had taken a couple of tries but they finally got him with something liquid and easy to process by way of food to consume. By now the room looked like a battered cell. 

Noh was halfway through downing the entire bowl in a single swallow when he felt eyes linger on him. 

Looking up Billy had not quite left yet, holding his own bowl with something unreadable on his face. Pausing in his drinking, Noh stared back. Before the magic user could bolt, he sat. 

An invitation. 

The warlock looked down, it was half a nod. He returned to sit. There was no conversation, only a mutual scanning of faces. Reading each other, neither having a fair amount of practice. 

Billy didn’t seem to like what he found, wanting to set the unspoken conversation away and pretend he never looked. Noh however couldn’t seem to put it aside so easily.

This happened a few more times. The tense silences, Noh’s voice hadn’t been heard in a month. The place was looking worse and worse. Dented walls, unidentifiable substances on the ground. 

Billy appeared on time, reeling at the smell. Noh perked at his arrival, eager to see him. Eager to please. 

“You need a shower,” Billy stated, deciding he’d clean the room no problem. Noh agreed, however his glances at the door and hesitance in movement suggested he wasn’t going anywhere alone. 

Billy didn’t want to do this, it was only harder on everyone. But looking at Noh’s face he saw what he saw every time. A pleading. A desperate beg for Billy to cement his sanity and cure his longing. At least for a short time. An hour, thirty minutes max. Billy had always left without a word when he caught himself staring back too long, entertaining the idea too much. 

He wasn’t interested in being the replacement, the temporary sanity, he didn’t want his brother’s place he wanted his brother. 

But in stretches of silence, hovering outside that door he would wonder. Would Tommy do it for him? The answer always came heavily. Whether it was no or yes he could convince himself either way. So here he was escorting Noh to the bathroom, leading the other by hand. Noh catches his grip before he thinks to disappear again. 

The begging eyes come once more, they are tired but insistent. Billy knows at the word the other will drop him and let him be on his way. But he’s tired too. Maybe just this once, maybe Noh needed this. 

So he stays. 

The alien doesn’t ask much of him, but takes a step back, stripping down. Stepping forward he starts to strip Billy too but the feeling of unfamiliar hands on his skin is a lot. Especially since Noh really needs a shower. 

It’s Billy’s turn to step back, directing the roach into the water but he promises not to disappear. 

Peeling off clothes like hesitantly removing a safety net, Billy is aware this is twisted and wrong so wrong but he’s stepping in the shower as well, a pointed stare falling on the tile behind the alien; slightly crooked- has that always been like that- while eyes rake over his body in appraisal. 

Around he reaches to grab at shampoo because really something needs to be done about this smell and there’s an arm around his waist that a reflexive grab holds to steady himself. He doesn’t want to look, instead his head finds his companion’s chest. It’s not romantic or comforting, it just is. 

Shampoo works its way into hair, running slowly down and between bodies. Noh is keeping hands above the waist running over hips and shoulders and the small of his back like he’s looking for something. 

Unsure whether or not he’s found it, hands take over washing once Billy is through with his hair. The naked man turns away as if he weren’t the one that dragged Billy in here. When the smaller sees the him half turn, the first notice to take is the dick half hard for what he could only assume. He didn’t want to assume. 

Suddenly this was too much, not what he signed up for. He didn’t seem to making any advances on him, or even acknowledging it beyond the one or two strokes to wash. But everything was spinning, spiraling. 

Billy pukes. 

Noh doesn’t mind. 

He then disappears; Noh is laughing now. Masochistically sharp cries without humor turn into full body sobs that leave him sitting on the shower floor wanting to die all over again. 

What a Tommy thing to do.

It’s two weeks before he sees Billy again. He’d moved himself back onto the ship, but not quite outer space. Care packages are dropped off, but no one is admitted. This arrangement works better on everyone. 

Often Billy would deliver them himself, poised to knock or say something but he would turn and leave quickly. Noh would watch from the cameras. 

One particularly challenging day, Noh hadn’t picked up the food. He always made a habit of doing this whether he intended to eat or not- Kate made him promise, it was anyone’s sign he was still living. So when the warlock arrived quickly startled for good reason, he began calling out the Kree’s name softly. He still couldn’t bring himself to really do it could he? Really contact him, confront him about… anything. 

Noh opened the door just as he was muttering something about getting Teddy. 

The last thing he wanted to see was the disappointment on Dorrek Vell’s face. 

So he peeked out, almost scurrying down to claim both boxes, ready to disappear if Billy was. The eye contact lingered a second long enough to convince the smaller to propel himself forward by one step. “Thai...Tommy’s favorite,” he lifted the day old box and set both of them aside. The sentence sounded innocent enough coming from him excluding the husky accented voice fashioned by a week or two of who knows what. Not sleeping that’s for sure. 

Billy on the other hand was visibly jolted, fists clenched like he could draw some sort of remnants of his twin from his own soul. Something he’d tried many times. 

Finally he’d made it up the ramp in the actual ship entrance, staring around and trying not to imagine Noh-Varr’s activities up here, or lack thereof if anything in the room was to go by. 

“Are you here to talk?” He finally asked after a long silence of Billy not being able to come up with any sort of words after their last meeting. It didn’t seem like he’d be able to answer that either, when finally he sighed. 

“No, I guess not.”

Noh-Varr watched Billy as he began to run fingers up his chest pushing his shirt out of the way. He felt like an intruder the way the eyes were trained on him, slowly closing the door back. Turning away he fiddled with the buttons of his jeans. With the slow motions it might have been assumed he was putting on a show, were his hands not shaking terribly. 

“William,” The Kree made his way forward, gripping his wrists, “I don’t want you to do this-” 

Nothing about his tone or cadence had conveyed sincerity and Billy shoved him in response, sudden anger bubbling forth. 

“Yes you do,” he snaps, “It’s all you’ve wanted. Since- Since-,” there’s nothing else he can say, fingers still wound tight around the denim bunched at his waist. So Noh peels and pries his hands gently away, unable to deny as much. He lifts Billy, wrapping the legs around his waist as he pries the clothing away and carries him around. Billy only hangs on for fear of losing balance. 

There are no kisses to fill the space and time it takes to get Billy’s briefs around one ankle, only fistfuls of hair and clothing accompanied by the rustling of sheets as they’re splayed out across the bed. 

Noh dips between Billy’s legs needy for affection, for praise, for a reminder. 

Billy gasps out, there’s a mouth on his dick and it’s not Teddy’s. Dear God, it’s not Teddy’s at all. But it wasn’t terrible in feel, only in spirit. Besides he was the one who wanted to go through with this. 

He tried to envision something that wouldn’t make this situation disgustingly worse than it already was. 

Teddy? His shoulder slump of disappointment, or potentially even anger if he found out. Would he let Billy explain? What if he didn’t? Oh God, what if he did. So Teddy was out of the question. 

He then tried to envision why he was doing this. Why he’d let Noh-Varr convince him to do this. The sad pained look behind his face every second. His longing for something to call his again. It was a terribly pathetic sight, definitely not sex material. 

So he found himself opening his eyes again, staring off at the wall with a heavy pant as he focused on the colors, the feeling, nothing specific. The Kree must have sensed Billy was not particularly invested and did something positively enrapturing with his throat and Kaplan yelled in surprise. 

“Ah-! Noh what did you do??” He questioned arching into the tongue running up and over his shaft with a practiced skill. Hands flew to grip at hair and Billy pulls sharply, grinding down hard. 

The other doesn’t seem to mind all that much the twisting and turning. Eyes sliding closed he seemed to enjoy it actually. Both pairs of hands were gripping and pulling at the sheets and Billy goes back to panting, now laced with desperate whines. 

Pulling off earned a shout and even legs tossed over his shoulders to pull him back. Instead the alien leans in to attack his balls instead, suckling at the flesh and licking up the pair of nads and a stripe trailing right along the underside to the tip. It was maddeningly teasing of him and Billy hadn’t stopped rocking to find some sort of friction. 

Pausing to hover just so over the tip so Billy’s thrusts were met with nothing more than a teasing swipe of tongue Noh growled something low and guttural in Kree. It was something Billy was all too familiar hearing in both Kree and Skrull. 

“W-what?” He sputtered out face flushing all the way down to his neck. 

“Loud enough,” He forced out in English through teeth gritted hard enough to bite diamonds in half he was sure. “You’re not loud enough.” 

Normally the sound would be hot and intimidating enough to rile Billy into heightened arousal. But with Noh-Varr it sounded primitive and scary. Like maybe if he forced hard enough- if he could just- if only-

But Tommy was gone. He wasn’t coming back.

The rest happened in a blur. Billy remembered feeling a tongue in his ass and fingers shortly after. He remembered screaming and shouting. Whether it was Noh he was praising or Teddy he was calling for from sheer muscle memory, he didn’t know. 

The Kree didn’t care. 

He’d stop listening to Billy’s words, only hearing the screams into the empty ship. Billy came hard and Noh made sure to swallow every drop, if nothing else than to remove evidence. While his companion lay panting, he pulled the briefs back up and jeans following suit. He was even careful to smooth everything out before crawling up to lay next to him. 

“N-Noh I-” Billy panted out shifting briefly to look at him over his shoulder, but the bug was already burying desperately into his shirt. This is what he really wanted. 

“I know,” He muttered only holding him closer. 

“You can’t- We can’t-,” Billy tried to amend with a bit of a wiggle. 

“I know,” He continued to growl out grabbing a fistful of the blankets. 

“This isn’t healthy,” The voice of reason dropped to a low whisper still mostly waiting for feeling to return to his legs. 

“Had I determined a method of healing that was… efficient… sufficient… do you not think I would be seeking it out right now?” The response isn’t bitter.

Finally Billy shuffles away, crawling out of bed, out of Noh’s arms. The alien doesn’t resist, doesn’t protest, eyes don’t follow him and he begins to take his leave, checking his phone. 

“Um how do you..?” Billy questions looking for a way to lower the door of the ship. With a deep inhale he finally pushes himself up, opening the way for him with a wave off. Billy pauses at the bottom of the ship, one foot on the roof it’s parked on. 

They lock eyes, there’s a mutual agreement; they shouldn’t keep doing this. This shouldn’t happen again. But it probably will. Noh sees Teddy approaching and picks up the two boxes of food as a sort of front. But when his eyes meet Teddy’s he knows. Teddy has Billy, he’d never really not had Billy. The Kree-Skrull hybrid would be worse off had the other twin been lost in Tommy’s place. They both know. They look at Billy and smile to not let on; but everyone is only too aware of the unspoken catharsis.

**Author's Note:**

> Post your worst stuff first to give people absolutely no expectations whatsoever.


End file.
